io.net named Gaurav Sharma chief executive on April 23, 2025. io.net moved him up from chief technology officer, it said in a release from its Dubai base1. That same release named co-founder Tory Green chairperson of the io.net Foundation. io.net had just renamed the body from the IOG Foundation. Decrypt republished the announcement on April 23, 20252. Sharma had spent nearly 20 years in distributed systems and high-performance computing before the promotion. His prior stops included senior engineering roles at Binance, Agoda and Amazon, the release said.
The second CEO appointment at io.net on the record since 2024
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 9, 2024 | Green became CEO. Tory Green was named Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
| April 23, 2025 | Green left as CEO. Tory Green left as Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
| April 23, 2025 | Sharma became CEO. Gaurav Sharma was named Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
35 CEO appointments on the record in 2025, the most of any year
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2025: 35
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 8 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 17 |
| 2024 | 26 |
| 2025 | 35 |
| 2026 | 18 |
The move
io.net split its top job in two on April 23, 2025. Green would run outreach and policy work for the new foundation. Sharma would keep building the company itself. "The need for decentralization in AI has never been more urgent," Green said in the release. He added he was “excited to lead this work and support the builders who are making that future possible”1. Sharma struck a similar note about the job ahead of him. “From day one, we've been building the decentralised infrastructure layer for AI, something the world desperately needs,” Sharma said. “I'm proud to take on this role with an exceptional team beside me”.
The release credited Sharma with io.net's technical architecture. It named two products, IO Cloud and IO Intelligence, that he had driven as CTO1. Sharma would run the company alongside co-founder and chief operating officer Basem Oubah, the release said.
io.net before and after
Before the change, io.net called itself a decentralized network that pools GPU capacity from data centers, crypto miners and partner sources for AI and machine learning work1. The release gave Green's foundation a four-part mandate: advocate for decentralized infrastructure, run a grants program for developers and researchers, publish research on decentralization, and engage policymakers on AI infrastructure rules. Green and Sharma said they would host a joint question session on io.net's account on X on April 29, 2025, six days after the announcement.
What came next
Sharma remained io.net's chief executive on June 11, 2026. A June 11, 2026 press release distributed through CoinDesk marked the network's third anniversary with a new token model3. The release said io.net had closed an $8 million enterprise contract, its largest deal as of June 11, 2026, and was processing up to 4 billion AI tokens a day on OpenRouter, an AI model-routing platform. Sharma described the shift in his own words. “Most token economies in our space are still built around the hope that prices go up,” Sharma said. “Ours is built around the certainty that people are paying to use the network. That's a fundamentally different foundation”. The release said io.net's network spanned 138 countries as of June 11, 2026.
Sources
- io.net, "io.net Co-founder Tory Green Appointed as Chair of io.net Foundation; Gaurav Sharma Appointed CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth," Chainwire, April 23, 2025, https://chainwire.org/2025/04/23/io-net-co-founder-tory-green-appointed-as-chair-of-io-net-foundation-gaurav-sharma-appointed-ceo-to-drive-next-phase-of-growth/
- io.net, "io.net Co-founder Tory Green Appointed as Chair of io.net Foundation; Gaurav Sharma Appointed CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth," Decrypt, April 23, 2025, https://decrypt.co/315993/io-net-co-founder-tory-green-appointed-as-chair-of-io-net-foundation-gaurav-sharma-appointed-ceo-to-drive-next-phase-of-growth
- io.net, "io.net to Burn Up to 12M Tokens as Network Closes $8M Deal and Hits 4 Billion Daily AI Tokens," CoinDesk (press release), June 11, 2026, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/06/11/io-net-to-burn-up-to-12m-tokens-as-network-closes-usd8m-deal-and-hits-4-billion-daily-ai-tokens